


Tokyo's Pickman

by Shokkou



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Bullying, Disturbing Artwork, Gen, Ghouls and their Humans, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Loneliness, No Canon Characters I'm afraid, Roleplaying Characters, crappy parenting, unlikely friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-27 03:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10800687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shokkou/pseuds/Shokkou
Summary: There's more than one way to end up between two worlds.





	1. First Meetings

**Author's Note:**

> No canon characters I'm afraid. I'm aware that this is a major failing for a fanfic but I'm a member of a recently opened Tokyo Ghoul role-play site (specifically this one; http://unravelrpg.jcink.net/index.php) and the backstory stuff for my characters generated a lot of ideas.
> 
> More or less a rewrite of my other fic "Letting Someone In" since there was a bunch of stuff that I wasn't happy about or changed my mind about so I figured new RP site, new fic. I hope you enjoy but constructive criticism and other feedback is always welcome.

The first time they met was when Hiroshi was returning from a trip to get coffee from the vending machine just outside the apartment building. Hot cans in hand, he’d only just started to walk up the stairs when he noticed a noise that sounded like something repeatedly hitting the wall. Wondering what it was, he continued his ascent. 

He’d reached one of the half-landings when the noise abruptly stopped and a ball dropped down from somewhere above. Bending down to pick it up, he heard a distant curse that probably wouldn’t have been audible to a human, followed by the sound of someone running down the stairs.

The someone in question turned out to be a boy who looked a bit younger than himself, scrawny wrists and ankles left visible by too short sleeves and trousers, dark eyes looking out under black hair in dire need of a trim. A discreet sniff confirmed that he was human.

The other boy looked down at Hiroshi from the next half-landing up, seemingly unsure of what to do. Hiroshi smiled up at him.

“Hi. Is this your ball?”

“Yeah. Can I have it back?”

“Sure.”

He tossed it up gently. The boy caught it easily but didn’t move.

“Why are you playing on the stairs?”

The moment that the question was out of his mouth it occurred to him that he probably shouldn’t have asked it. The boy hesitated for a moment before answering.

“Kaasan and her boyfriend are having a fight.”

“Oh.”

Hiroshi resumed climbing the stairs. The boy didn’t move until Hiroshi had caught up with him, then walked up with him until they parted ways on the next floor.

That might’ve been the end of it but a little over a week later Hiroshi was on his way downstairs to go to the convenience store and found that the boy with the black hair was out on the stairs again, this time sat on the cold floor in a school uniform, a backpack beside him. He had a scrape on his chin, he looked like he’d been crying recently, and he was scribbling away furiously in an exercise book on his lap but looked up when he heard the other boy approach.

For some reason the sight made Hiroshi pause.

"Hi. You okay?"

The other boy shrugged.

"Yeah."

His appearance and the tone of his voice said otherwise though. Hiroshi knew that it wasn't his business, that there was no reason for him to get involved and were in fact some very big reasons why he shouldn't, regardless of how alone and miserable the other boy looked. He could just walk away. He probably should walk away.

Instead he kept talking.

"What are you drawing?"

The other boy looked at him with an odd half-surprised, half-wary expression on his face and visibly hesitated before showing him the inside of the exercise book which was best described as a two dimensional gorefest. Boys in what looked like the same school uniform as their artist were suffering a variety of gruesome deaths; crushed under the wheels of a car, torn apart by a pack of wolves, impaled on railings, or on fire. Most of the artwork was in pencil, the only colour a large amount of red gel pen blood.

The boy keep looking at him warily, waiting for his reaction. Hiroshi wasn't sure what the appropriate/human reaction would be. In the end he went with honesty since it was a human who'd drawn the pictures in the first place.

"They're really good. Gory, but good. I wish I could draw like that."

The other boy seemed to be surprised by the praise but smiled ever so slightly.

"Thanks."

There was a pause then Hiroshi asked the next question to come to mind.

"Why are you sat drawing out here?"

The other boy shrugged again.

"I got locked out."

"Oh."

There was a voice in Hiroshi's head that sounded a lot like his mother telling him to not get any more involved, to take his leave and continue on his way. He knew that that would be the sensible thing to do but for some reason what came out of his mouth was something else entirely.

"I'm going to the convenience store. Do you want to come with me?"

It took the other boy a moment to answer, surprise and wariness being replaced by a odd hopeful look that seemed out of proportion for such a simple invitation.

"Yeah."

Stuffing his exercise book and pen back in his bag he got up, moving in a slightly awkward way that hinted at the presence of further injuries under his clothes. He bowed slightly and introduced himself.

"I'm Hiroshi."

The name garnered a raised eyebrow.

"My name's Hiroshi too."

To be fair it was a common enough name but it was still a little odd to meet someone who shared it with him. It wasn't important though so he put the thought aside for the time being.

"Come on then, other Hiroshi."

Still not entirely sure what he was doing or why he was doing it (although he was pretty sure that how alone the other boy seemed to be and the way he'd looked at him when invited were contributing factors) he led the way down the stairs. The other boy followed close behind.

Not much of interest happened at the convenience store. Hiroshi had been worried that he might seem odd if he didn't buy any food or drinks but the other boy didn't show much interest in them either. Instead they looked at the manga and other magazines and awkwardly talked about them until the store's employees started giving them funny looks which they took as their hint to leave. Hiroshi bought a couple of magazines and the other Hiroshi bought nothing.

They chatted a bit more on the way home, before again parting ways on the other Hiroshi's floor.

Hiroshi's mother was waiting for him when he came in. 

"You were gone a long time. I was starting to worry."

"I wasn't gone that long."

"It was still longer than usual."

He shrugged.

"I ran into someone."

"Who?"

"Just a boy who lives downstairs. I've met him before. We went to the convenience store together."

He left out the fact that he'd invited him.

"A human?"

"Yeah. His name was Hiroshi too."

For a moment she looked like she was going to tell him to stay away from said human in future, but instead she just sighed and shook her head.

"How old is he?"

"About my age, maybe a bit younger."

"Hmm. That's not too bad I suppose. Just be careful."

"Don’t worry, I was. All we did was look at magazines and chat."

"What about?"

"Nothing really important. Manga, random stuff, him. I kind of felt sorry for him, I don't think he has any friends."

His mother put her hand on his shoulder.

"You're a kind boy. Just remember to be careful about getting close to people. We can't have anyone noticing anything."

"I will."


	2. Rooftop Conversations

It was early evening and a boy was sat on the roof of the apartment building. He wasn't supposed to be up there but the lock on the door to it was broken, he'd was staying out of the apartment for a bit because his mother was hungover and therefore extra irritable, and it made a change from the stairwell. Spread around him were pens, pencils and a manga that his mother's latest ex had left behind and which definitely wasn't intended for someone his age. In his lap was a cheap pad of unlined paper with drawing covered scrap paper from various other sources crammed between the pages, upon which he was carefully copying a particularly interesting picture from the manga. He wasn't doing as good a job as he'd like but it was all a matter of practice. 

So focused was he on his drawing that it took him a moment to notice that he wasn't alone on the roof anymore and look up to see who it was.

"Hi. Are you stalking me or something?"

He said it with a smile, happy to see someone who'd been nice to him and might be becoming his friend. The other boy smiled back.

"No. We just keep running into each other. What are you doing?"

"Copying stuff from this."

He tapped the manga with his pencil.

"I can't read it without a kanji dictionary but I like the way the pictures are drawn."

The other boy sat down next to him.

"Can I have a look?"

In reply he tilted the pad in his direction. 

"It's good."

"Not really. Not as good as whoever drew the manga."

"It's still better than I could manage. Have you done anything else?"

Feeling warmed by the praise he flipped back a few pages and showed them one at a time. Drawing number one was of the buildings across the road from his bedroom window, drawing number two was of a dog, and number three was another lot of copied manga artwork. So far so normal. He hesitated only slightly before moving on to the next page which was taken up with a fairly detailed and colourful drawing of the guy who picked on him the worst being eaten alive by a T-Rex. Liberal amounts of red were involved. The boy next to him didn't seem bothered.

"Why a dinosaur?"

He shrugged.

"It's just what I felt like drawing."

There was a pause before he spoke again.

"I've been thinking about the names thing. Us having the same name could get really confusing so if you wanted you could call me something else."

"Like what?"

He shrugged.

"Well, my family name is Ando, or my name's written like this."

He quickly wrote "寛" on the corner of the page.

"Maybe we could do something with that if you want."

"Eh, I think I'll just go with Ando if that's okay with you. Much simpler."

"It's fine."

Hiroshi grinned at him.

"Okay then Ando-kun it is."

Ando grinned back.

There was another moment of companionable silence before something occurred to Ando and he blurted it out.

"How old are you by the way?"

"Twelve."

"I'm eleven. I'll be twelve in a couple of months though."

"Anything planned for your birthday?"

"Not really."

Truth was, he'd be lucky if his mother even remembered that it was his birthday and even more lucky if she thought it was the right one. He decided to change the subject.

"I've had an idea. Sit still for a minute."

"Why?"

"You'll see."

Shifting around so that he had a better angle he turned to a fresh page of his pad and started to draw. The minutes ticked by and the Sun got progressively closer to the horizon. He finished just as it started to dip below it and proudly showed Hiroshi the result. The other boy looked suitably impressed.

"Hey that's great."

"Thanks."

Truthfully it wasn't anything near to being a perfect portrait and was rather stylised, more Hiroshi if he was a manga character than anything else, but it was still recognisably him.

Hiroshi looked around.

"It's getting dark. We should probably go home."

"Yeah, okay. Hang on a sec."

Gathering up his things, he took a moment to carefully tear Hiroshi's picture out of the pad before standing and holding it out to the boy in question.

"Here. It's yours."

Hiroshi accepted it with a grin.

"Thanks."

They went downstairs together, pausing at the door to Hiroshi's apartment.

"See you around Ando-kun."

"See you, bye."

As Hiroshi went inside, Ando continued on his way downstairs, hoping that his mother was either asleep or in a better mood than when he'd left."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter where not much happens I'm afraid. More ghoul stuff will be involved in future, I just need to get things set up first.


	3. Acts of Trust

Hiroshi wasn't entirely sure how it happened but after over six months he'd long since passed the point where he had no choice but to admit that somehow Ando had become his friend. He also had to admit that his reasons for befriending the other boy weren't entirely selfless; he'd picked up enough to figure out that despite being human Ando was more alone than he'd ever been and desperately needed someone who cared about him. Being that person went a long way towards making him feel like less of a monster, especially when he was the reason someone was happier than he would otherwise be or when he was looking at you like he'd given him the world. Besides, he genuinely liked Ando. The kid was a bit of an odd one and going by some of the stuff he drew he had definite twisted streak but Hiroshi was in no position to judge, the other boy was a lot more interesting than most people and the two of them just clicked.

His mother hadn't said much about it apart from reminding him to be careful but he could tell that she wasn't entirely happy about it.

Currently they were hanging out on the swings at the park but the Sun was setting, it was cold and there was a guy sitting nearby who was trying to look nine but who kept eying Ando in a way that Hiroshi really didn't like.

“We should probably go home.”

Ando nodded in agreement, then checked his watch and sighed.

“Can’t. Mum’s got a bunch of her friends around so I'm banished from the apartment until half past seven at the earliest. It's only quarter past five."

Hiroshi considered the options. He really didn't want to leave Ando alone, especially given the way that guy was looking at him. The wind was blowing the wrong way for him to get his scent but he was pretty sure that he was eying Ando up for dinner. They could just hang around a convenience store for a couple of hours but they'd been doing that a lot recently and the staff didn't seem to be happy about it, especially given that they rarely bought anything. Plus Ando looked really tired.

Nevertheless he was about to suggest doing so when another idea occurred to him. His own mother was working late and their apartment was currently free of body parts or anything else incriminating. People invited their friends over didn't they? It probably wasn't the brightest idea and he would probably get in trouble for it but a particularly large and loud yawn from Ando settled things for him.

“You can come back to mine if you want.”

Ando gave him that just-been-offered-the-world look again.

"I'd like that. Thank you."

**********

Ando was twelve and he was starting to develop suspicions about his best friend.

This was largely the fault of his mother’s latest boyfriend. To be fair, Morita Daiki was probably one of the better guys she’d dated, even if he was an idiot who drank too much and was a bit of a free loader but the guy had a serious obsession with all things gory and apparently thought that watching horror movies, gory anime and only marginally less gristly documentaries on ghouls with his girlfriend’s pre-teen son was a great idea. Admittedly it had provided him with a lot of new inspiration for his drawings but unfortunately some of the stuff mentioned in those documentaries rang a bell and sometime after the third documentary the ringing was too loud to ignore. Fact was, when you can a mother like Ando’s who had the taste in men that she did and had to deal with even more crap at school, you learnt to be observant and not ignore things in the interest of self-preservation and unfortunately the same skills that allowed him to spot trouble coming and get out of the apartment before it arrived or to tell when his classmates were planning something had resulted in him observing certain oddities about his best friend that fitted with some of what he’d learnt from the documentaries a bit too well.

Point one: Ghouls couldn’t eat human food and it would taste absolutely foul to them. Ando had never seen Hiroshi consume anything other than water and unsweetened black coffee. To be fair, he said that it was because he had allergies and Ando didn’t know how the coffee would fit in if he was a ghoul but still…

Point two: To avoid detection, ghouls didn’t send their children to school. Hiroshi was homeschooled (something which Ando was actually more than a little envious about even though he didn't want to spend all day with his mother either), apparently because he’d been sick a lot when he was younger and had fallen behind so regular school would be too much of a struggle until he caught up, but it had been almost a year and there had been no mention of him going back to school yet even though he was thirteen and should be in his first year of middle school by now.

Point three: Ghouls didn’t get sick, they healed extremely fast, and their skin was largely impervious to injury. Despite his supposed past ill health, Ando had never known Hiroshi to be ill or to have so much as a scratch on him, even when he probably should. Not that suspicious in itself but worth noting none the less.

Of course, there was the fairly compelling counter argument that Ando had been friends with him for almost a year and had been alone with him on numerous occasions and nothing had happened. Going by what the documentaries and Daiki’s magazines said that ghouls were like, a ghoul should have tried to eat him by now, but there hadn’t been so much as an attempted nibble. In fact, Hiroshi had never harmed a hair on his head. So, either he wasn’t a ghoul or if he was he was nothing like how everyone said ghouls were.

Which was why even with his suspicions occupying a fair amount of space in his head he happily followed Hiroshi into his apartment. Said apartment was smaller than the one he lived in, a 1DK rather than a 2DK, but it was a lot cleaner and smelt of coffee rather than cigarette smoke. It also felt cosier, more like a home or at least what he imagined a proper home, rather than just somewhere where people slept and kept their things, to be like.

Hiroshi gestured around the tiny apartment awkwardly.

"Well, this is it. Can I get you anything? I’m afraid that we haven’t had chance to go food shopping for a while so your only options are coffee and water.”

"No thanks. I'm not thirsty at the minute."

Taking off his shoes he followed Hiroshi into the main room of the apartment. Most of the room's wooden floor was taken up by a thick rug, in the centre of which was an electric kotatsu which the boys didn’t waste much time switching on and getting their legs under. As his feet warmed up, Ando yawned.

“Tired?”

“A bit, yeah.”

He yawned again.

If he was honest it was more than a bit; he hadn’t got much sleep the night before because his mother and Daiki were loud, the walls were thin, and sticking his head under his pillow could only do so much.

The two watched TV for a while, well Hiroshi watched TV and Ando sort of alternated between watching and doodling on a piece of scrap paper he'd dug out of his pocket, then Hiroshi got up to go to the toilet.

Ando’s curiosity got the better of him less than three seconds after the door closed. With maximum stealth, he got up and had a nose around the kitchen. Hiroshi hadn’t been exaggerating when he said that there was only water and coffee available. The cupboards were empty apart from a couple of different kinds of coffee, while the fridge was completely empty and spotless. No rice, no tea, no soy sauce, no juice, no anything.

A little voice in his head pointed out that this was very suspicious and that ghouls probably wouldn’t have anything in their cupboards or fridges either, except maybe human body parts. Ando was however prevented from dwelling on these thoughts by the sound of the toilet flushing. With as much stealth as he could muster he dashed back to the kotatsu, sat down and resumed doodling. By the time Hiroshi emerged from the bathroom it was like he hadn’t moved, or so he hoped.

“Did I miss anything?”

Ando shrugged, his suspicions once again mostly buried under a pile of ‘he’s your best friend’ and ‘it’s been almost a year without so much as a nibble.’

“Not really.”

For a while they watched TV in companionable silence that was broken only by Ando’s increasingly frequent yawns. The rug was soft, the kotatsu was warm and despite his best efforts to fight it off, he was becoming increasingly sleepy.

He yawned again. Maybe if he just lay down and rested his eyes for a little while…

 ***************

Hiroshi looked at the sleeping human with a smile. He’d had his worries about bringing Ando back here and had been a bit more worried when he was pretty sure that he’d heard him creeping around the kitchen, but given that the human was currently sound asleep on his floor it was probably safe to say that he didn’t have any suspicions. To be honest, the thought that Ando felt safe enough to fall asleep in his presence was kind of nice, even if it was due to ignorance on Ando’s part. Turning down the volume of the TV so as not to disturb him, he reached over and adjusted the kotatsu’s blanket so that it covered more of Ando’s chest.

As he did so the paper Ando had been drawing on caught his eye and he had a closer look. It had been folded in half and what was drawn on the outside was pretty ordinary, especially by Ando standards; sketches of faces and other odds and ends. Half of the inside was more of the same but what was on the other half made him pause.

It was a cartoonish drawing of a humanoid figure gnawing on the arm of a dead boy in a school uniform. Off to the side was another figure that seemed happy and was identifiable as Ando, with a speech bubble saying "Thank you Mr Ghoul. If you're still hungry I know lots of other people you can eat."

Hiroshi wasn't sure how to feel about the drawing. Shaking his head he refolded the paper and looked down at the boy sleeping on the floor.

"You really are a strange kid."

Ando slept on without hearing.

Over an hour passed without incident, Hiroshi alternating between watching TV and checking on Ando who remained out like a light. He was considering having a nap himself when he heard the front door open.

“I’m home.”

Ando didn’t so much as twitch as Hiroshi scrambled out from under the kotetsu to meet his mother as she stepped out of the genkan.

“We’ve got company.”

“Who…?”

She trailed off as she spotted the human snoozing on the rug.

“Hiroshi, what did you do?”

For one brief, slightly mad moment he had an urge to say "he followed me home, can I keep him" but had the sense to resist the temptation.

“Don’t worry, everything is fine.”

“No it’s not”, she replied before lowering her voice to a volume that it would be hard for humans to hear. “There is a human in our home. Do you have any idea how much of a danger that is? What is he doing here?”

“It’s okay, he doesn’t suspect anything.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I doubt that he’d be asleep on our floor if he did.”

She paused for a moment to consider that.

“True, but that doesn’t change the fact that he shouldn’t be here. What were you thinking?”

“It was kind of an emergency. I'll explain everything but can it wait until after I’ve sent him home?”

She sighed.

“Very well. Wake him up and get him out of here then.”

He nodded, then knelt down and shook Ando’s shoulder.

“Ando, time to wake up.”

The human groaned, then his eyes fluttered open.

“Oh. Was I asleep for long?”

“A while. It’s almost eight.”

“Oh.”

Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes and yawned, before noticing that there was a third person in the room. Three things happened in rapid succession; he blushed, scrambled to his feet almost tripping over himself in the process, and bowed a bit more deeply than was strictly necessary. Hiroshi made the necessary introductions

"Ando, this is my mum. Mum, this is Ando."

Ando bowed again.

“I’m pleased to finally meet you Mrs Yamada. I’m sorry for falling asleep on your floor but I was tired and it was really comfortable and…”

She cut him off mid-babble.

“It’s alright Ando-kun. I’m pleased to finally meet you too. Hiroshi has told me a lot about you.”

He visibly perked up at that.

“Really?”

“Yes, you sound like a good friend.”

He smiled.

“Thank you. Again, I’m sorry for just falling asleep like that. I’ll be going now.”

Hiroshi saw him to the door and waited while he pulled his shoes on.

“Sorry to chase you out the door like this.”

“It’s okay. Your mum seems really nice.”

There was the tiniest trace of something sad in his voice when he said that.

“She is. I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“See you then. Bye.”

As soon as the door closed behind him, Hiroshi’s shoulders slumped. Time to face the music.


End file.
